Open source curriculum
Encyclopedia
An open source curriculum (OSC) is an online instructional resource that can be freely used, distributed and modified. OSC is based on the open source
practice of creating products or software that opens up access to source materials or codes. Applied to education
, this process invites feedback and participation from developers, educators, government officials, students and parents and empowers them to exchange ideas, improve best practices and create world-class curricula. These “development” communities can form ad-hoc, within the same subject area or around a common student need, and allow for a variety of editing and workflow structures.
, Curriki
– Global Learning & Education Community, MIT OpenCourseWare
and Connexions
are one way in which the concept of open source curriculum is being explored. With these online repositories, a curriculum framework for a particular course is created by an instructional designer or author in conjunction with content experts. Learning objectives are clearly identified, and learning activities and instructional sequences and assessments are developed and offered to support the attainment of the objectives. However, all users (from students to educators) are empowered to add, delete, and modify the learning activities, resources and generally contribute to the learning environment. In short, each user contributes to the repository and is able to select curricula based on individual interests.
The Open Content Curriculum Project was initiated with MediaWiki software in 2005, and offers a standards-based K-12 curriculum that is collaboratively edited, contains teacher- and student-created resources, assessment rubrics, lesson plans, and instructional resources. All 10,500 pages of content, and 4,240 file uploads are Creative Commons licensed, and the system is used daily by the Bering Strait School District
, an Alaska school district. The project welcomes use and active contributions by outside teachers, students and other interested parties. There are currently 2,500 registered users in the database.
OpenEducator, a non-profit organization launched in March 2006 using the open source Drupal
CMS
, aims to support an open source curriculum development community for K-12 educators. Another project, the Open Source Learning Project, is an open source curriculum project initiated by JTG Learning Open Learning Project. This project is focused on a curriculum and training materials for emergency service
s and developing a resource for emergency services related research. The LAMS Community is a repository of "Learning Designs" (also known as digital lesson plans) which incorporate both content and collaborative activities into a structured flow of tasks that can be run with Learning Design software such as LAMS.
The Free Technology Academy is a joint initiative of the Free Knowledge Institute
and several European universities to provide master-level education on Free Software, Open Standards and related subjects. All FTA course books are openly published under copyleft licenses. Moreover, the FTA partners together with several other institutions have started a Taskforce for the collaborative design of an International Master Programme in Free Software.
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
practice of creating products or software that opens up access to source materials or codes. Applied to education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, this process invites feedback and participation from developers, educators, government officials, students and parents and empowers them to exchange ideas, improve best practices and create world-class curricula. These “development” communities can form ad-hoc, within the same subject area or around a common student need, and allow for a variety of editing and workflow structures.
Examples
OSC repositories such as WikiversityWikiversity
Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project, which supports learning communities, their learning materials, and resulting activities. It differs from more structured projects such as Wikipedia in that it instead offers a series of tutorials, or courses, for the fostering of learning, rather than...
, Curriki
Curriki
Curriki is a nonprofit organization that is building an Internet site for open source curriculum development, to provide universal access to free curricula and instructional materials for students up to the age of 18 . By applying the open source process to education, Curriki empowers educational...
– Global Learning & Education Community, MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT OpenCourseWare is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to put all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, partly free and openly available to anyone, anywhere. MIT OpenCourseWare is a large-scale, web-based publication of...
and Connexions
Connexions
Connexions is a global repository of educational content provided by Rice University. The entire collection is available free of charge, and students and learners alike can explore all the content they desire....
are one way in which the concept of open source curriculum is being explored. With these online repositories, a curriculum framework for a particular course is created by an instructional designer or author in conjunction with content experts. Learning objectives are clearly identified, and learning activities and instructional sequences and assessments are developed and offered to support the attainment of the objectives. However, all users (from students to educators) are empowered to add, delete, and modify the learning activities, resources and generally contribute to the learning environment. In short, each user contributes to the repository and is able to select curricula based on individual interests.
The Open Content Curriculum Project was initiated with MediaWiki software in 2005, and offers a standards-based K-12 curriculum that is collaboratively edited, contains teacher- and student-created resources, assessment rubrics, lesson plans, and instructional resources. All 10,500 pages of content, and 4,240 file uploads are Creative Commons licensed, and the system is used daily by the Bering Strait School District
Bering Strait School District
Bering Strait School District is a school district in northwestern Alaska, United States, serving approximately 1,700 students in grades K-12 in fifteen isolated villages...
, an Alaska school district. The project welcomes use and active contributions by outside teachers, students and other interested parties. There are currently 2,500 registered users in the database.
OpenEducator, a non-profit organization launched in March 2006 using the open source Drupal
Drupal
Drupal is a free and open-source content management system and content management framework written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is used as a back-end system for at least 1.5% of all websites worldwide ranging from personal blogs to corporate, political, and...
CMS
Content management system
A content management system is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based...
, aims to support an open source curriculum development community for K-12 educators. Another project, the Open Source Learning Project, is an open source curriculum project initiated by JTG Learning Open Learning Project. This project is focused on a curriculum and training materials for emergency service
Emergency service
Emergency services are organizations which ensure public safety and health by addressing different emergencies. Some agencies exist solely for addressing certain types of emergencies whilst others deal with ad hoc emergencies as part of their normal responsibilities...
s and developing a resource for emergency services related research. The LAMS Community is a repository of "Learning Designs" (also known as digital lesson plans) which incorporate both content and collaborative activities into a structured flow of tasks that can be run with Learning Design software such as LAMS.
The Free Technology Academy is a joint initiative of the Free Knowledge Institute
Free Knowledge Institute
The Free Knowledge Institute is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2006 in The Netherlands. Inspired by the Free Software movement, the FKI fosters the free exchange of knowledge in all areas of society by promoting freedom of use, modification, copying and distribution of knowledge in four...
and several European universities to provide master-level education on Free Software, Open Standards and related subjects. All FTA course books are openly published under copyleft licenses. Moreover, the FTA partners together with several other institutions have started a Taskforce for the collaborative design of an International Master Programme in Free Software.
Resources
- Futureofthebook.org
- eSchool News Online
- TeachShare.org - The Community Curriculum Project draws on the knowledge of school teachers, to explain how to teach courses.
- OpenContent Curriculum Project
- Open Source Software in Education
- Global TextGlobal TextGlobal Text or the Global Text Project is an emerging organisation dedicated to the assembly of free information material and its dissemination to the developing world under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Global Text is currently in a proof-of-concept phase with the preparation two...
- EduCommons
- Creative CommonsCreative CommonsCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
- Free Technology Academy
- Free High School Science Textbook project
- UK Innovation/Jorum (Open in UK only)
- EISTI-ESSEC - an EU based open courseware repository project with Vivendi involvement - Jean-Hugues Lauret
- Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
- The Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- LAMS Community
- LAMS
- Wikiteach
- Common Curriculum - Allows organizations to create curriculum and connect to the teachers using it.
- The OpenCourseWare Consortium